Glossary
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- Mastic
- a resin that gives a sour flavor to dishes. A shrub rarely growing higher than 12 feet, much branched, and found freely scattered over the Mediterranean region, in Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Turkey, the Canary Islands, and Tropical Africa. The best Mastic occurs in roundish tears about the size of a small pea, or in flattened, irregular pear-shape, or oblong pieces covered with a whitish powder. They are pale yellow in color, which darkens with age. The odor is agreeable and the taste mild and resinous, and when chewed it becomes soft, so that it can easily be masticated. This characteristic enables it to be distinguished from a resin called Sanderach, which it resembles, but which when bitten breaks to powder.
